Across the United States, acquittals of White police officers who have killed Black men have spurred clashes between those who see such situations as manifestations of racism and those who see them as race-irrelevant acts of officer self-defense. In this research, we explore the relationship between participants’ racial prejudice and construal of an event that leads to the death of a Black man. In Study 1, we found that participants’ racial prejudice predicts lower perceived guilt for a White officer who killed a Black man. In Study 2, we found evidence that the relationship between racial prejudice and guilt judgments is driven by increased perceptions that the officer was in danger and decreased perceived relevance of officer prejudice. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that these patterns hold when the victim is Black, but not White. We conclude that racial prejudice shapes perceptions of legal responsibility for lethal interactions with Black men.
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